Job 36:10

36:10 And he reveals ¹  this ²  for correction,

and says that they must turn ³  from evil.

Job 36:15

36:15 He delivers the afflicted by ⁴  their ⁵  afflictions,

he reveals himself to them ⁶  by their suffering.

Job 36:2

36:2 “Be patient ⁷  with me a little longer

and I will instruct you,

for I still have words to speak on God’s behalf. ⁸ 

Job 7:1

The Brevity of Life

7:1 “Does not humanity have hard service ⁹  on earth?

Are not their days also

like the days of a hired man? ¹⁰ 

Psalms 40:6

40:6 Receiving sacrifices and offerings are not your primary concern. ¹¹ 

You make that quite clear to me! ¹² 

You do not ask for burnt sacrifices and sin offerings.

Isaiah 6:10

6:10 Make the hearts of these people calloused;

make their ears deaf and their eyes blind!

Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears,

their hearts might understand and they might repent and be healed.” ¹³ 

Isaiah 48:8

48:8 You did not hear,

you do not know,

you were not told beforehand. ¹⁴ 

For I know that you are very deceitful; ¹⁵ 

you were labeled ¹⁶  a rebel from birth.

Isaiah 50:5

50:5 The sovereign Lord has spoken to me clearly; ¹⁷ 

I have not rebelled,

I have not turned back.

Luke 24:45

24:45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures, ¹⁸ 

Acts 16:14

16:14 A ¹⁹  woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth ²⁰  from the city of Thyatira, ²¹  a God-fearing woman, listened to us. ²²  The Lord opened her heart to respond ²³  to what Paul was saying.

[36:10]  ¹ tn The idiom once again is “he uncovers their ear.”

[36:10]  ² tn The revelation is in the preceding verse, and so a pronoun must be added to make the reference clear.

[36:10]  ³ tn The verb שׁוּב (shuv, “to turn; to return”) is one of the two major words in the OT for “repent” – to return from evil. Here the imperfect should be obligatory – they must do it.

[36:15]  ⁴ tn The preposition בּ (bet) in these two lines is not location but instrument, not “in” but “by means of.” The affliction and the oppression serve as a warning for sin, and therefore a means of salvation.

[36:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “his.”

[36:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “he uncovers their ear.”

[36:2]  ⁷ tn The verb כָּתַּר (kattar) is the Piel imperative; in Hebrew the word means “to surround” and is related to the noun for crown. But in Syriac it means “to wait.” This section of the book of Job will have a few Aramaic words.

[36:2]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text simply has “for yet for God words.”

[7:1]  ⁹ tn The word צָבָא (tsava’) is actually “army”; it can be used for the hard service of military service as well as other toil. As a military term it would include the fixed period of duty (the time) and the hard work (toil). Job here is considering the lot of all humans, not just himself.

[7:1]  ¹⁰ tn The שָׂכִיר (sakhir) is a hired man, either a man who works for wages, or a mercenary soldier (Jer 46:21). The latter sense may be what is intended here in view of the parallelism, although the next verse seems much broader.

[40:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “sacrifice and offering you do not desire.” The statement is exaggerated for the sake of emphasis (see Ps 51:16 as well). God is pleased with sacrifices, but his first priority is obedience and loyalty (see 1 Sam 15:22). Sacrifices and offerings apart from genuine allegiance are meaningless (see Isa 1:11-20).

[40:6]  ¹² tn Heb “ears you hollowed out for me.” The meaning of this odd expression is debated (this is the only collocation of “hollowed out” and “ears” in the OT). It may have been an idiomatic expression referring to making a point clear to a listener. The LXX has “but a body you have prepared for me,” a reading which is followed in Heb 10:5.

[6:10]  ¹³ sn Do we take this commission at face value? Does the Lord really want to prevent his people from understanding, repenting, and being healed? Verse 9, which ostensibly records the content of Isaiah’s message, is clearly ironic. As far as we know, Isaiah did not literally proclaim these exact words. The Hebrew imperatival forms are employed rhetorically and anticipate the response Isaiah will receive. When all is said and done, Isaiah might as well preface and conclude every message with these ironic words, which, though imperatival in form, might be paraphrased as follows: “You continually hear, but don’t understand; you continually see, but don’t perceive.” Isaiah might as well command them to be spiritually insensitive, because, as the preceding and following chapters make clear, the people are bent on that anyway. (This ironic command is comparable to saying to a particularly recalcitrant individual, “Go ahead, be stubborn!”) Verse 10b is also clearly sarcastic. On the surface it seems to indicate Isaiah’s hardening ministry will prevent genuine repentance. But, as the surrounding chapters clearly reveal, the people were hardly ready or willing to repent. Therefore, Isaiah’s preaching was not needed to prevent repentance! Verse 10b reflects the people’s attitude and might be paraphrased accordingly: “Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their mind, repent, and be restored, and they certainly wouldn’t want that, would they?” Of course, this sarcastic statement may also reveal that the Lord himself is now bent on judgment, not reconciliation. Just as Pharaoh’s rejection of Yahweh’s ultimatum ignited judgment and foreclosed, at least temporarily, any opportunity for repentance, so the Lord may have come to the point where he has decreed to bring judgment before opening the door for repentance once more. The sarcastic statement in verse 10b would be an emphatic way of making this clear. (Perhaps we could expand our paraphrase: “Otherwise they might…repent, and be restored, and they certainly wouldn’t want that, would they? Besides, it’s too late for that!”) Within this sarcastic framework, verse 10a must also be seen as ironic. As in verse 9 the imperatival forms should be taken as rhetorical and as anticipating the people’s response. One might paraphrase: “Your preaching will desensitize the minds of these people, make their hearing dull, and blind their eyes.” From the outset the Lord might as well command Isaiah to harden the people, because his preaching will end up having that effect. Despite the use of irony, we should still view this as a genuine, albeit indirect, act of divine hardening. After all, God did not have to send Isaiah. By sending him, he drives the sinful people further from him, for Isaiah’s preaching, which focuses on the Lord’s covenantal demands and impending judgment upon covenantal rebellion, forces the people to confront their sin and then continues to desensitize them as they respond negatively to the message. As in the case of Pharaoh, Yahweh’s hardening is not arbitrarily imposed on a righteous or even morally neutral object. Rather his hardening is an element of his righteous judgment on recalcitrant sinners. Ironically, Israel’s rejection of prophetic preaching in turn expedites disciplinary punishment, and brings the battered people to a point where they might be ready for reconciliation. The prophesied judgment (cf. 6:11-13) was fulfilled by 701 b.c. when the Assyrians devastated the land (a situation presupposed by Isa 1:2-20; see especially vv. 4-9). At that time the divine hardening had run its course and Isaiah is able to issue an ultimatum (1:19-20), one which Hezekiah apparently took to heart, resulting in the sparing of Jerusalem (see Isa 36-39 and cf. Jer 26:18-19 with Mic 3:12).This interpretation, which holds in balance both Israel’s moral responsibility and the Lord’s sovereign work among his people, is consistent with other pertinent texts both within and outside the Book of Isaiah. Isa 3:9 declares that the people of Judah “have brought disaster upon themselves,” but Isa 29:9-10 indicates that the Lord was involved to some degree in desensitizing the people. Zech 7:11-12 looks back to the pre-exilic era (cf. v. 7) and observes that the earlier generations stubbornly hardened their hearts, but Ps 81:11-12, recalling this same period, states that the Lord “gave them over to their stubborn hearts.”

[48:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “beforehand your ear did not open.”

[48:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “deceiving, you deceive.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[48:8]  ¹⁶ tn Or “called” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[50:5]  ¹⁷ tn Or perhaps, “makes me obedient.” The text reads literally, “has opened for me an ear.”

[24:45]  ¹⁸ sn Luke does not mention specific texts here, but it is likely that many of the scriptures he mentioned elsewhere in Luke-Acts would have been among those he had in mind.

[16:14]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “And a.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[16:14]  ²⁰ tn On the term translated “a dealer in purple cloth” see BDAG 855 s.v. πορφυρόπωλις.

[16:14]  ²¹ sn Thyatira was a city in the province of Lydia in Asia Minor.

[16:14]  ²² tn The words “to us” are not in the Greek text, but are implied. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context, but must be supplied for the modern English reader.

[16:14]  ²³ tn Although BDAG 880 s.v. προσέχω 2.b gives the meaning “pay attention to” here, this could be misunderstood by the modern English reader to mean merely listening intently. The following context, however, indicates that Lydia responded positively to Paul’s message, so the verb here was translated “to respond.”